Homily for Feast of St. Ignatius
Mission Church
Santa Clara University
31 July 2018
When growing up, my brother John behaved like the stereotypical middle child. If someone was going to challenge the rules, at home or at school, it was John. If someone was caught smoking after grammar school, it was usually John. When my mother met the fifth-grade teacher, the Sister began with, “So you’re John Engh’s mother!” And it was John who made the outrageous statements, whose sense of hyperbole stretched credibility, whose comments could not be ignored or forgotten.
In our Gospel today, Jesus made such startling statements that no one could ignore them. “If you do not hate your father or mother and spouse and children, do not bother following me.” Further, be ready to chance losing all your possessions, or even to risk a shameful death. Stunned listeners could never forgot what he said. He startled them further by challenging his followers to count the cost of discipleship, as carefully as a king going to war or a builder erecting a great tower.
Jesus possessed a vision, what he called the Kingdom of God, a dream from God. Jesus inspired people with to see the world radically changed and humanity freed of war, suffering, and poverty. Jesus invited people to discover for themselves what God could do in their lives if they were willing to see with new eyes. If they were willing to engage. Let me offer three examples of very different persons who risked taking their spiritual discoveries seriously.
1. Two weeks ago, I had a chance conversation on a plane flight with a college student, whom I shall call Eric. He wore a tee shirt emblazoned with Birthright, and I asked if he was returning from Israel. He was delighted that I knew that Birthright is a program for young Jews to visit Israel and learn the history of their culture and faith.
Eric was animated – he spoke the length of the flight from L.A. to San Jose – about his discoveries of the recent weeks. Amid long hikes in the desert with his peers and visits to important Jewish sites, Eric found that religion could be exciting, engaging, and joyful. He came to embrace his Jewish heritage, but he did so with a sober realization that as a committed Jew he would be exposing himself to prejudice and anti-Semitism.
2. Shortly after that plane flight, I learned that our Bishop, Patrick McGrath, had invited diocesan Catholics to join him in praying for migrants, refugees, and Border families. The Bishop called attention to those suffering rejection of their appeals for asylum as well as forced separation from their children. In his homily that evening, the Bishop spoke from his heart and declared, “It is unconscionable… It is morally reprehensible that such a policy should be crafted only in order to ‘send a message’ for those seeking asylum not to come to the United States.”
The Bishop called everyone in the diocese to advocate for a just and human immigration policy for our nation. His bold statements placed the Bishop at some jeopardy of animosity. As we all know, Immigration is a volatile issue that divides our nation and inflames passions ad opinions. Bishop McGrath reminded us that the solution comes not from hatred, but from love. God’s Kingdom comes about when the followers of Jesus risk engaging with such tough issues and harnessing the power of love to change unjust laws. For our Bishop, however, the vision warranted the risk.
3. The man we honor today, Ignatius of Loyola, never intended to be a priest, let alone a saint. Nonetheless, he chose to set aside conformity and social expectations. A serious injury led him to reflect on the course of his status-seeking life. He gradually opened his mind to new possibilities and discovered a vision for who he could be and what he could do. Through trial and error, he encountered Jesus who fired his imagination.
While studying at the University of Paris, Ignatius met classmates and roommates who found him to be unforgettable. These graduate students discovered from Ignatius what Jeremiah described in our first reading: a fire for God burning in their hearts. They soon were serving people in need like St. Paul described in our Second Reading: whatever they did, they did for the glory of God. Unaware of exactly where they would go, they took the risk to throw in their lot with Ignatius. And that has made all the difference.
Let me conclude. Here in Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs take great pride in taking risks in start-ups, growing their companies, and developing new products. Like Jesus described, they calculate their costs carefully, plan thoughtfully, and then take the plunge. Call it bravado, call it imagination, call it leadership – it all starts with a compelling vision and a summons to risk.
Jesus acted far in advance with a startling vision of a world transformed, person by person. Jesus continues to animate his followers to work for that Kingdom of God open to all people. And, like those who first heard Jesus on the dusty roads of Israel, Jesus still walks with us to inspire, to challenge, to support, to encourage us with the radical, unforgettable summons to change our lives and to transform our world. He calls us to be even outrageous, not just in what we say, but in what we do for others. Such is our summons today, such is our call.
Michael Engh, S.J.
President